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These Curves Don’t Lie: Epidemic Curves and What They Tell Us About an Outbreak
Visualizing the data can sometimes give you clues to the origins of an epidemic.
If you’ve been paying attention to the measles epidemic centered in Texas, then you probably have seen the graphic representation of cases there. You’ve probably seen the maps, like this one I created showing not only the counties in Texas that are affected, but the counties in surrounding states:
Maps are great at showing you where and how bad epidemics are. But they don’t tell you the whole story. It’s hard to show time on maps, though there are some ways, like with time cubes.
In the map above, I used time cubes to show the different levels of intensity in the rates of homicides in Baltimore between 2005 and 2017. Both show you where homicides happened, and how bad the rate got, and when it was bad. You can read what I learned from my dissertation (and see how I used to write five years ago)…
